Here is the Charlie Pirtle memorial quilt that I made for the Becoming an Outdoorswoman in New Mexico workshop. It's a raffle quilt for scholarships for women to attend the workshops. It's in honor of our dear friend and outdoorsman Charlie Pirtle, who died in 2008. Here is the blog post about the finished quilt and Charlie.

The Charlie Pirtle quilt (at the top of this page) is finished and at home with its new owner.

The others all need to be quilted.

The baby quilt might get quilted this weekend. After all, this baby is due within the next month! Best get with it!

I love making the quilt tops. I love quilting them, too. Sometimes, though, a deadline such as having a class sample in a shop by a certain date prevents me from getting the quilting done. Other times, a quilt with a more pressing deadline (such as a gift) gets put ahead of a quilt that is ready for quilting. That causes some of my quilts to stay unquilted.

I feel so good when it get one quilted and bound and done. I always have mixed feelings about finishing a quilt. I feel relief and happiness to have it done. I also feel a little sad to see the project end.

I love the process. I also love the finished product. When one goes away, I have a twinge of sadness. I hope it gives joy to the recipient.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

This is part of the quilt that I made to be raffled in memory of our friend, Charlie Pirtle, who passed away in August 2008. Charlie was a real gentleman who loved the outdoors. He loved sharing his knowledge of the outdoors with others. He taught at the Becoming an Outdoors Woman in New Mexico workshop for many years. His students loved him and fellow instructors loved to be around him because we could still learn so much from him.

This is the third quilt that I've made in Charlie's honor to be raffled off at BOW-NM. A woman from the Albuquerque area won the quilt this year. She and I both had tears in our eyes. She never met Charlie, but I'm sure she felt the love and friendship that I tried to sew into this quilt.

Here are the two other quilts that I made for the Charlie Pirtle Memorial Scholarship raffle.

This was for the 2009 BOW

For the 2010 BOW

I'm honored to be making these quilts in Charlie's memory, but I'd rather not be making them. I think of him (and Sara) all the time I'm working on these quilts. I think of them often even when I'm not working on the quilt.

My husband, who loved Charlie, too, already helped form the idea and the plan for the next quilt. It will be an old fashioned pattern. Made in an old fashioned way. I think Charlie would smile and nod about that with his grin and that twinkle in his eye.